


Tenten's Secret Love Seal

by cherryberry12



Series: RarePair Bingo 2019 [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Femslash, Fuuinjutsu, and karins dad is her teacher, supplemented by my hundred headcanons about karins dad, tenten is a fuuinjutsu student, where karin actually has parents and is happy and living in konoha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 10:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19904101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryberry12/pseuds/cherryberry12
Summary: When your dad is a world famous fuuinjutsu master, it's only a matter of time before he finds himself a worthy student.For Naruto Rarepair bingo, "celebrity."





	Tenten's Secret Love Seal

**Author's Note:**

> For the Rarepair Bingo Space: celebrity!

“How do you not just think it's like… the coolest thing ever!” Tenten asks, her mouth popping open like the fresh jar of ink powder she's just set in her lap. Nearly all of her is stained by it already—ink on her fingertips, her sleeves, faded smears just under her hairline. Fuuinjutsu practice starts at 4 am sharp, and doesn’t end until her teacher gets tired of her. “I've never seen a book so detailed! And his style… do you know how long it takes to actually develop a personal _style_? I mean even his basic fuuinjutsu has it! Explosive tags and wallet seals and… even there you can see it! Isn't that just incredible?” 

Karin gives her a flat look. “Not really.”

Tenten rolls her eyes and flicks chalky ink at her. 

“How is that not incredible?” she asks, holding her jar up to the sunlight, squinting to estimate how full it is. “You are… you are just _so_ wrong right now. Astronomically wrong! We're talking _quantum_ amounts of wrong here, Karin, and I think I'd know something about that!” 

“Well, he's my dad, so excuse me for finding his scrapbooking more than a little boring.”

“ _Scrapbooking_?” Tenten’s eyes may very well bulge out of her head. Karin would only be slightly exaggerating if she said Tenten spent every waking after obsessing over her new fuuinjutsu teacher, and her level of excitement is pretty hard to match. “You're calling this _scrapbooking_?” 

“That's what I said, yeah.”

“Karin, your dad is, and I am just barely exaggerating here, one of _the_ most decorated and well-learned and… and… _brilliant_ fuuinjutsu masters alive. How do you not think that's incredible? He's like Koyuki Kazahana levels of famous!”

Karin snorts. After weeks of pestering, Tenten has finally gotten Karin’s dad to take her in as a pupil, which meant casual meetings like this, where it's just the two of them and an empty training ground, have been rarer and rarer as time goes on. 

_A well-rested fuuinjutsu ‘master’ is about as useful as a dead one,_ her dad spat once after a previous student had the gall to request a week off to prepare for the chunin exams. 

Unlike every one of his former students, Tenten hasn't seemed to mind his prickliness one bit, her eyes too full of stars, her head too full of ideas. 

“I don't mean to burst your bubble but he's only famous by default since, you know, there's no one else from Uzushio around to compete.” 

Tenten grimaces. “Okay, well you didn’t have to go there! I, ugh.” She laughs, easily shrugging off the awkward pause. “I don’t even know what to _say_ to that.”

Tenten’s backpack jingles as she rummages through it, tossing out her brushes one at a time onto the grass between them. 

You'd think a fledgling fuuinjutsu master would be a little more organized.

You'd think. 

Tenten fishes out a dozen different brushes of different widths and lengths before she seems satisfied, continuing, “He’d still be the coolest, even if Uzushio was still around. I don’t care. After all, he’s your dad, and that’s gotta count for something.”

“Well, I don’t see what that would have to do with anything.” Karin stares as Tenten cracks open her bottle of water and begins adding drops to her ink powder, mixing it a medium-sized brush she twirls in her fingers. 

Tenten glances over to see Karin watching her and grins, but Karin only flips her hair over her shoulder and rests back on her arms.

“You should let me show you what he’s been teaching me,” Tenten says after a brief silence. “Gimme your hand, I can show you my favorite seal!”

Karin scoffs. “Uh, do I look like a moron? There’s no way I’m gonna play guinea pig to Dad’s weird experimental crap.”

Tenten rolls her eyes. “First of all—not weird. Second of all—” and Tenten’s got a tiny, pencil-sized brush tucked behind her ear, is furiously mixing water and ink as if Karin hadn’t said anything. “—not experimental. And third! It’s not even a combat fuuinjutsu so,” she sticks her tongue out at Karin. “Totally safe.”

“If you knew how many times I've heard Dad say—”

“ _Please_?” Tenten asks, batting her eyelashes. “I can pout if—”

Karin waves her hands. “Fine, fine. Go ahead,” and she sticks out her arm. “Do your worst.”

“This is gonna be so good.” Tenten grins, and Karin isn’t entirely sure if she’s ready to agree just yet. 

Tenten licks her brush and—ew, Karin scrunches her nose. “Don't pick up Dad’s bad habits, I'm begging you.”

Tenten waves her off and starts drawing with her tiny brush, a series of mostly-uniform swirls around each knuckle, connected with skinny tomoe, cold kisses with soft bristles. She begins to add flourishes, crosses and circles and neat dots down to Karin’s wrist. 

Karin raises her eyebrows. “Hey, that’s pretty impressive that you’re doing all of this from memory.”

“Well.” Tenten shrugs noncommittally and dips her brush again, scraping excess ink off on the rim of her jar. “It’s a pretty intricate seal, that’s for certain.”

Karin nods, distracted by the smooth turn of Tenten’s wrist when she completes another perfect circle. “I can’t remember the last time I saw Dad do something this involved.” She pauses, then frowns. “What’s it supposed to do?” 

Tenten grins again, and it’s _significantly_ more unsettling than it was last time. “Your dad calls it a love seal,” and laughs when Karin wrinkles her nose. “He said he made it before he and your mom started dating, as a way of getting close to her.”

Karin looks around slowly, licks her dry lips. “Huh,” she sounds out, drawing the syllable out. “Well.” She sighs. “That sounds like something he would do.”

Tenten nods, and adds a long, snake-like line that curls all the way up to Karin’s forearm, the brush tickling when it crosses over the sensitive skin in the crook of her arm. Karin’s arm jerks, but Tenten’s line adjusts, stays perfectly straight. “Heh, sorry.” 

Tenten waves her free hand. “Oh, no worries! Your dad has all kinds of drills for this stuff—I can draw a seal half-awake, in the dark, holding the brush in my mouth!” and Karin snorts, beginning to understand just why her dad finally caved and let Tenten into his studio. 

“So… What’s this seal do?”

“Well,” Tenten starts, pausing at Karin’s bicep, “his reasoning was that even though he didn’t know your mother very well, he really liked her. So he needed something long and complex that would keep her attention, and since she was so clever and all…” Tenten trails off, but when Karin waits patiently for her, distracted by the small, black loops she’s tracing, Tenten continues. “So this seal gave him the opportunity to get her attention, and it gave him a chance to finally ask her on a date. It’s all very clever, actually.” 

Karin hums. “He’s never told me that story. Go figure.” 

Tenten pauses, and to Karin’s eyes it looks like she’s finally run out of room on her arm. Instead of stopping, Tenten flips it over, and begins adding Naruto-shaped swirls around her elbow, holding Karin’s arm up as if she’s just won something.

It’s silly, and there’s so little free space left that Tenten has to pinch Karin’s fingers together to maintain any sort of handhold. Karin can’t help but laugh at Tenten’s religious level of care as she moves Karin’s arm again, trying to avoid smearing her artwork. “Can you tell me what this does already? I’m dying to know.”

“Mmm.” Tenten’s eyebrows knit in concentration, and she pulls away, blowing on the wet ink.

It’s cold, and it sends shivers up Karin’s shoulder when Tenten starts to wave her hand over Karin’s arm to dry it. 

It’s a fine art, her dad has said before. A work of patience and timing, to try to get ink dry in a hurry. 

“Tenten?”

The other girl looks up. “Huh?”

“The seal. What’s it do?”

“Well.” Tenten stops waving her hand. She turns Karin’s hand over, palm upwards, and her palm is the only part of her arm that isn’t completely covered in what is easily the most intricate seal Karin’s even seen before, soft loops and cute wiggles from her fingertips to her shoulder.

It doesn’t exactly strike her as the type of thing her dad would invent. 

Finally, Tenten laughs. “The seal does a whole lot! It just… well, it’s not exactly a traditional seal…” and she takes Karin’s hand in hers, locks their fingers together, Tenten’s gloved hands carefully placed around her love seal. Tenten’s eyes are light, caramel-ice-cream brown, and heavy with a mischief that she could only have learned from Karin’s dad. “It lets me sit here and talk to a pretty lady for as long as I want, and as long as I can think of things to draw you won’t leave!” 

Karin’s mouth drops, but just as quickly snaps shut. “… Pretty?” 

Tenten grins, and gives Karin’s hand a light squeeze. “The prettiest!” she promises, placing a quick kiss to the dried ink on the top of Karin’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I am 100% convinced that Karin's dad is the biggest asshole you will ever meet, but he's so good at what he does that everyone begrudgingly puts up with him. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who comments, leave kudos, and reads! I love you dearly!


End file.
